36 
House 
& Garden 
GEORGE WASHINGTON, 
ARCHITECT and DECORATOR 
Some Records Which Show that the Father of His Country Was Very Much 
Interested in Things Around the House 
THOMAS BRABAZON 
G eorge Washington has been so 
persistently misrepresented for genera¬ 
tions, as a kind of dehumanized iceberg in 
human form, a mere embodiment of public 
and military virtues, that it is exceedingly 
difficult to make most people realize that he 
was actually a man of flesh and blood and 
had any human, personal and 
domestic side at all. As a 
matter of fact, he was in¬ 
tensely human in every re¬ 
spect. It is the purpose of 
this article to direct attention 
to one aspect of Washing¬ 
ton’s personal activities too 
generally unknown or disre¬ 
garded—his role as an archi¬ 
tect and as an interior deco¬ 
rator. 
Consider the master of 
Mount Vernon as an archi¬ 
tect. In so doing we must 
keep clearly before us two 
things; first, the architectural 
qualifications of the average 
gentleman of the period, and, 
second, the qualifications of 
Washington in particular. 
‘‘Some considerable degree of 
architectural knowledge or, 
at the very least, some substantial cultivation 
of architectural taste and discrimination seems 
to have been held an indispensable part of 
every gentleman’s education in the 18th Cen¬ 
tury,” especially in the American Colonies 
where there were practically no professional 
architects until a comparatively late date. 
© Detroit Publishing Co. 
The erection of the outbuildings at Mount Vernon occupied 
Washington’s attention during the early years of the Presidency 
“Consequently, it is not surprising to find that 
some of our native amateur architects pos¬ 
sessed knowledge and ability by no means con¬ 
temptible.” They were not “mere dabbling 
dilettanti, flirting with a polite and amiable 
penchant for architectural amenities. The best 
of them, and those that left the most impres¬ 
sive memorials of their talent 
and skill, were . . . busy 
men of large affairs and 
serious interests. They, as 
well as the master carpenters, 
were thoroughly conversant 
with the best architectural 
books of the period and often 
had a fair showing of them 
on the shelves of their libra¬ 
ries. More than one of them 
left standing orders with their 
London booksellers to send 
them, upon publication, such 
volumes as were most worth 
while. Another factor in 
their fitness” was their fre¬ 
quent acquaintance with the 
principles of surveying. “In¬ 
deed, it was almost impera¬ 
tively necessary for large 
landowners to have a knowl- 
(Continued on page 62) 
© Detroit Publishing Co. © Detroit Publishing Co. 
Washington is believed to have designed the book cases in the library. The banqueting hall is one of the rooms that Washington added to 
Whether at home or away from Mount Vernon, he superintended the Mount Vernon. The decorative plaster ceiling was placed under 
work of all alterations his direction 
